bike culture blogged

Take a look at these maps of where Cars and Bicycles collide from the Portland Oregonian and the Seattle PI(warning: 500k+ download). Interesting data in both cases, but check out the big brains on the Oregonian! Explorable Google maps, an ODOT analysis of fault (50% motorists, 42% cyclists, 8% shared), and reasonable advice to motorists and cyclists about how to NOT appear on the next version of the map.

Best though is the video of Jeff Mapes talking about Amsterdam, Portland and road travel safety.

I like it â€“ The Worst Intersection in Seattleâ„¢ is right there on the Burke Gilman Trail â€“ that sure muddies the water for the more cycling facilities crowd.

How about making that intersection a no free right on red zone (with new dedicated left turn lights) and finally baton wielding police to give a thrashing to scofflaw cyclists who ignore the flashing red donâ€™t walk light?

As I was riding my bike home from work yesterday I wondered if my original post, which specified a nationality of the police in order to add an element of irony and absurdity was going to be deemed offensive.

Apparently so.

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Shakespeare: Henry VI, part 2.

Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that legal concerns prompted the edit. The famous Shakespeare quotation is actually uttered (by Dick the Butcher) in outlining his personal autocratic utopian vision; lawyers stand between would-be dictators and their goals…

It was also a backhanded way to imply what nationality (again absurdly and hopefully humorously)of baton wielding police I meant. If, in reading my original comment, everyone envisions Seattle’s finest, I come off as a bike-hating facsist,...